


Love Among the Corals

by creaturefeature



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Time Travel, Aquariums, Breaking Up & Making Up, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24784897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creaturefeature/pseuds/creaturefeature
Summary: Cavendish was looking right at him, eyes earnest and a bit red. It touched something in Dakota, reminded him of early in their relationship, before Cavendish had gone prematurely gray, before he had become so angry at the world, at himself. It reminded him of the day they’d met; Cavendish had been wearing blue, almost exactly the same shade as his eyes, and he’d been quietly arrogant but so, so earnest about it, so self-righteous. He’d yelled at Dakota about something stupid, he couldn’t remember what. Dakota had no idea why he’d been so charmed- but he had, and those blue eyes drew him in again now.
Relationships: Balthazar Cavendish/Vinnie Dakota, Vinnie Dakota & Heinz Doofenshmirtz
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	Love Among the Corals

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am a vegetarian, and I have never eaten a chop cheese; thus I can take no responsibility for the quality of such a sandwich, as breakup food or otherwise.

Reef-A-Palooza was, without a doubt, one of the highlights of Vinnie Dakota’s year, a firm second behind the reptile expo in White Plains, just a few months away in April, or possibly third following Aquatic Experience in October. The reptile expo would also likely be the next time he would have to drive his beat-up hatchback; Dakota lovingly beat the steering wheel in time with the mindless pop playing over the radio, speakers cutting out on every pothole taken at speed. Cavendish had always hated this car. Dakota felt his mouth twist into a little frown at the thought of his ex. Nothing was good enough for pretentiously British Balthazar Cavendish, not the car, not Dakota himself, definitely not the singular Reef-A-Palooza. 

_ Nope _ , nothing was going to ruin this weekend for him. Dakota refocused on the positive- pop music, the impending fish overload, the chicken wings he was going to eat afterwards. He pulled into the gray parking lot, the front bumper of the car scraping along the dirty remnants of snow; he stepped carefully over the grimy sludge on his way into the conference center, trying in vain to keep his white sneakers white. He’d already purchased a ticket online, and past the ticket booth was the bounty of the open show floor. 

Dakota made his way slowly through the various booths and exhibitors, taking time to gawk at any sufficiently interesting tank; they were mostly reef tanks, and he didn’t really know so much about saltwater aquariums, but the darting fish and delicate corals were sufficiently mysterious to be really compelling. Normally, Cavendish would have been manhandling him, making him approach the show floor methodically, row by row- but Cavendish wasn’t here, and Dakota could feel himself getting slightly turned around as he wandered. It didn’t matter. Not like he was any kind of deadline, and he really wanted to take his time. The longer he was here, the longer he didn’t have to drive back into Brooklyn. The tanks were amazing; there wasn’t any aquascaping to speak of but the corals were unbelievable colors under the blacklights.

One seller in particular had great tanks, some kind of anemone drawing Dakota in. The tanks were low and long, sheets of clear acrylic separating them into small sections, each labeled on the front with marker and containing one or two specimens. He crouched to get at eye level with the anemone and watched it sway gently in the current as the vendor chatted with another attendee above his head. Losing himself in the movement, he crouched there for a few minutes; he only came back to himself upon hearing a very suspiciously familiar voice somewhere above him.

“We’re going the wrong way,” he was complaining. “If we go down that row first, it will be far more efficient.” Yup, okay, definitely Cavendish.

Dakota popped up from the floor, finding himself very suddenly and not entirely enthusiastically in front of his ex. Cavendish was still wearing that idiotic grey and brown suit; he looked mostly the same as he always did, cranky, pretentious, over-styled moustache above lips set in a moue of distaste. Now, however, he looked very surprised, probably at Dakota appearing seemingly out of nowhere- not that he had any right to be surprised, since Dakota went to this show  _ every year,  _ and sort of thought he had been the de facto recipient of this event in the breakup, since Cavendish  _ didn’t even like animals.  _ But no, he was standing right there, next to a very normal-if-confused-looking man, no, holding hands with normal-if-confused, which Dakota could admit sort of hurt. 

“Hey Cavendish,” he said, never one to be unfriendly. 

“Vincent,” Cavendish replied stiffly.

“Didn’t think I would see you here, honestly,” Dakota said.

“I’m here with Greg,” Cavendish said, almost painfully awkward, gesturing to the man next to him, “my- boyfriend?” 

At this, Dakota turned his attention to this “Greg”. He was short, maybe even shorter than Dakota himself, somewhat rotund, balding a bit, overall just a really normal seeming guy. He was even wearing a blue polo shirt. Wow, yeah, incredibly normal. 

“Hi, I’m Greg,” Greg said, reaching out with his free hand. Dakota took it and tried his best to give it a firm and friendly shake without squeezing too hard, as Cavendish had always told him he did. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your-?”

“Vinnie,” Dakota said. “Nice to meet you. What brings you to Reef-A-Palooza?”

“Oh, I breed tropical fish. I know most of the vendors and a lot of the people here, I come every year.”

“Oh shit, me too!” Dakota said. “Not- I don’t breed fish, but I come here every year. Isn’t it awesome?”

Greg smiled. “Yeah, it’s great,” he said. “Baz was telling me-”

_ “Baz?”  _ Dakota interrupted, laughing, which- okay, maybe not the nicest reaction, but who called Cavendish anything other than Cavendish? And since when did Cavendish let them? Looking back over at him, though, he had gone from stiff and awkward to just spectacularly angry.

“I’m not going to stand here and be mocked!” he said, face flushed, more than a touch too loud, before ripping his hand away from Greg’s and stalking away all tall and gangly. Classic Cavendish overreaction.

Dakota met Greg’s eyes with a shrug. The poor guy was back to confused, standing alone on the show floor, looking after Cavendish. 

“I guess I’d better see if he’s…” Greg said helplessly, gesturing to the grey suiting disappearing into the crowd. 

“Uh, okay. Bye,” Dakota said.

  
  


\----------

  
  


Dakota was, admittedly, a little annoyed by the interpersonal difficulties that had marred the sacred Reef-A-Palooza show floor. It could have been worse, however, and he returned to his fifth-floor walkup in a pretty good mood. His roommate was home, too, judging by the mess of little electronics components, papers, spools of wire, a soldering iron… Not that he had a right to complain, as he was similarly messy when given the chance. There was no way he could afford an apartment like this on his own anyways. 

“Hey, man,” he said, ducking his head around the corner to see Heinz sitting at the table tinkering with something that may have once been a radio and which now served purposes unknown. 

“Your timing is uncanny! Can you hand me that- y’know, thing?” Heinz gestured vaguely. Dakota figured he must have been talking about the wireless soldering iron that had rolled into the hallway and handed it to him; it was a solid guess, since Heinz took it and immediately turned back to his project. “How was your fish thing?”

“Fine,” he said. “Guess who I saw there?” Dakota didn’t wait for an answer, knowing any pause would be met with silence or an uncontrollable stream-of-consciousness containing no actual, plausible guesses, “Cavendish. With a new boyfriend, apparently.”

That got Heinz’s attention, at least for a few seconds. “Ouch,” he said. “Are you-”

“Nah, it’s all good, I’m fine,” Dakota said, and he was, honestly. Sure, it still hurt, to have put so many years and so much effort into a relationship only for your partner to walk out on you like it meant nothing. And yeah, he still felt like he needed Cavendish all the time, but he was working on it. “His boyfriend seems nice.” He walked past Heinz into the kitchen and cracked open a beer from the fridge. His sneakers left a squeaky trail of grime across the tile, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Cavendish would have yelled at him. In this he felt a measure of freedom, living here with Heinz. Heinz was fun, smart in a way Cavendish never had been, and he didn’t care if Dakota ate all the chips or tracked dirt on the floor while drinking the IPAs that Cavendish pretended to like but couldn’t stand. This thought, along with the drink, provided some measure of comfort. Dakota felt heartened.

Heinz had followed him into the kitchen, reaching into the upper cabinet for a bag of chips. God, why was every man in Dakota’s life so tall? “Are you sure? I was going to get dinner with Vanessa, but I could reschedule with her and we could sit on the couch, eat too much pizza, complain about our exes…”

“Nah, man,” Dakota said. “Seriously, don’t cancel on your daughter over me. I was gonna do some tank maintenance tonight anyways, not even remotely interesting. I need to do some trimming on the cichlid tank.”

Heinz gave him an uncharacteristically serious look for a second before shrugging and returning to his questionably legal radio tampering, or whatever he was into these days.

  
  


\-------

  
  


Vinnie Dakota worked at the Prospect Park Zoo; not as a zookeeper, his dream job, but as a checkout clerk in the Sea Lion Store and Café. Thinking well of everyone made it easy to take an optimistic view of the general population, even when confronted daily with the unquestionable malice of tourists. The goal was to save up enough to feel secure enough taking a part-time job and going back to school, actually getting a degree this time, but every time he got close something would happen; he would break his arm, or his car would break down, or his partner of 7 years would leave him and force him to unexpectedly break their lease and move into a new apartment with a random divorcee he’d met at the Pier 2 Roller Rink. At least this way, he could spend a few minutes watching the sea lions before walking home after his shifts.

Traffic was starting to pick up at the zoo as it got warmer, still a little slow as March continued but the crowds grew thicker every weekend. It was a slower day- Dakota spent most of his shift watching snake unboxing videos on his phone under the counter- when Cavendish burst back into his life, and the Sea Lion Store and Café yet again. The man was wearing his waistcoat unbuttoned over his shirt and a hat, not a stupid hipster bullshit hat but a normal cold-weather beanie. He looked flustered, uncertain. 

“Oh, Vincent,” he said, approaching the counter with the most transparent attempt at nonchalance Dakota had ever seen.

“Hi Cavendish,” Dakota said. “How’s that guy? Gary?”

“Greg,” Cavendish replied. Every second he stood there, his shoulders climbed further up his neck. “We, um, we ended our relationship.”

“No shit,” Dakota said.

“Yes, well,” Cavendish said. “I very much wanted to speak with you, and, well, possibly apologize for the way I treated you?”

Dakota bit his lip and turned away, fiddling with a pen on the counter. There was a customer standing behind Cavendish, on their phone but clearly impatient. “I don’t know, man,” he said.

“Please,” Cavendish said. When Dakota looked back, Cavendish was looking right at him, eyes earnest and a bit red. It touched something in Dakota, reminded him of early in their relationship, before Cavendish had gone prematurely gray, before he had become so angry at the world, at himself. It reminded him of the day they’d met; Cavendish had been wearing blue, almost exactly the same shade as his eyes, and he’d been quietly arrogant but so, so earnest about it, so self-righteous. He’d yelled at Dakota about something stupid, he couldn’t remember what. Dakota had no idea why he’d been so charmed- but he had, and those blue eyes drew him in again now.

“Fine,” he said. “I’m done in an hour. I’ll meet you outside.” 

Watching Cavendish walk out made his chest hurt.

  
  


\-----------

  
  


He found Cavendish on a bench overlooking the sea lions. He had his coat clutched tightly around his chest, it really wasn’t that cold but Dakota knew he was freezing all the time, regardless of the season, especially sitting on a drafty bench on a gray day mid-March. Dakota didn’t want to feel vindicated by this.

Sitting next to Cavendish, he sighed and threw his arm over the back of the bench. They were far enough away that it couldn’t be confused as anything too familiar, but it got him into Cavendish’s bubble, elbow almost brushing his shoulder. When it became clear that Cavendish wasn’t planning on breaking the silence, Dakota decided to take pity on him.

“What did you want to talk about?” he said. 

Cavendish inhaled and, finally, made eye contact. His idiotic moustache was ungroomed. “I have been thinking,” he said stiffly. “Ever since we- since the two of us broke up-”

“We didn’t break up,” Dakota said. “You left me.”

“Uh, yes, well, be that as it may,” Cavendish said. “Ever since then I have been considering my part in the breakdown of our relationship. Greg encouraged me to- seek  _ help-  _ and I can see now that I took out my anger and insecurities on you. I believed that our arguments justified my instigation, and my escalation of our conflicts. I hope that you can forgive me. The way I ended our relationship was wrong. Please, forgive me. Let me make it up to you.”

“Did you tell your therapist you were gonna come talk to me?” Dakota said.

“No,” Cavendish said, looking down. Dakota sighed.

“Listen,” he said. “I want to forgive you. But man, you really hurt me when you walked out on me. You kind of treated me like shit before then, too. I want to believe that you’ve changed and we can try again. I just don’t think it’s such a good idea. You broke my heart.”

“I miss you,” Cavendish said.

“I know,” he replied. “I miss you too. All the time.”

“I still love you,” Cavendish said.

Dakota stood. “Bye, Cavendish,” he said. 

The walk back to his and Heinz’s apartment had never felt longer. Dakota stopped in a bodega on the way, buying chips, a container of fries, and a chop cheese- it was maybe too early for dinner, but he fully intended to wallow in some fried and/or cheesy goodness on the couch until Heinz noticed his wallowing and ordered a pizza for a second, more appropriately timed dinner. His chest hurt, a hollow ache under his ribs. He hadn’t felt like this since last year, the day after Cavendish had returned to the apartment on Myrtle with boxes and taken all his stuff. The only thing of Cavendish’s that he hadn’t taken, and that Dakota hadn’t thrown out when he moved to Park Slope, was a cheesy tourist sweatshirt from their trip to the Grand Canyon. It was too small for Dakota to wear, but it had retained Cavendish’s fussy clean-laundry-and-aftershave smell for a while.

When he got home, after huffing up the steps, he dug out the sweatshirt from the back of his closet and set it next to him on the couch. The thing would probably get crumbs on it, which Cavendish would hate. Dakota switched on the TV and lost himself in cheesy-meaty-fried-potato and a recommended nature documentary on YouTube that was probably mostly untrue but extremely entertaining. 

Heinz wandered in about an hour in; the guy maybe never actually left their apartment? At this point Dakota was horizontal, holding the sweatshirt in one arm and mindlessly eating chips with his free hand. Now that he thought about it, he was still wearing his work uniform, too. No wonder he was so uncomfortable. None of his many tracksuits would dig into his stomach like this. 

“Ooh, what are we watching?” Heinz asked eagerly, shoving Dakota’s feet and sitting down. Not waiting for an answer, he said, “pass me the chips!”

“Nah, man,” he grunted. “Get your own.” 

Heinz said something at that, but Dakota had tuned back into the documentary; after a minute, Heinz did the same, at least as much as he could. The running commentary kind of helped, though. Made him feel less lonely.

  
  


\------

  
  


July was swelteringly hot. The zoo was overwhelmingly busy, and their apartment never seemed to be fully air conditioned, even when the thermostat was set to 74- Dakota had taken to carrying a box fan with him around the apartment. So, overall, miserable. He had also taken to going through his phone, looking at old pictures, listening to old voicemails, staring at Cavendish’s contact and pretending he wasn’t considering calling.

When they had first broken up, Dakota had- he had  _ needed  _ Cavendish. The needing was terrifying. It made him think that maybe their relationship hadn’t been so healthy. Codependent, even. Now, he didn’t need Cavendish. But he really  _ wanted _ him. He’d proven that they could both live apart, for over a year, even. Life went on. There were some things, though, that he knew would only be improved with Cavendish. He missed their constant bickering, their trips, the amount of fun they could have doing anything, even just buying groceries, when he could manage to coax Cavendish out of his shell. And Cavendish still loved him; at least he had when they’d last spoken. Dakota didn’t think someone could just get over a love like theirs, not really, and if Cavendish actually had been seeing a therapist, maybe some of that destructive insecurity would be gone and they could be even better.

He was sitting at the table with Heinz and his new(ish?) boyfriend, Perry, listening to Heinz lecture them about some new device he’d cobbled together with parts he’d bought online. Poor Charlene, that woman paid out the nose to fund this shit. Dakota liked Perry, he seemed really cool, but he was mute- not that mute people couldn’t be cool, only Dakota’s comprehension of sign language could be described as middling and he was way too ADHD to actually sit down and study it, even from the ASL YouTube videos Heinz kept sending him. They had been really supportive, listening to him talk about his feelings. Heinz thought that he should call Cavendish. Perry, apparently, disagreed, but would support Dakota no matter what he chose to do. Dakota wasn’t sure how much of that was Perry, and how much was Heinz’s editorializing, but he appreciated it regardless. 

Midway through some sort of rant about Heinz being raised by ocelots- which, what?- Dakota stood and said “uh, be right back.” He retreated to his room and shut the door behind him. Feeling exposed in his tank top and shorts but way too hot to add a layer, he climbed out through the open window onto the fire escape, palming his phone. Yep, Cavendish’s contact was still there, unchanged. 

Taking a deep breath, Dakota hit ‘call’ and held the phone up to his ear.

  
  


\---------

  
  


Aquatic Experience was, without a doubt, one of the highlights of Vinnia Dakota’s year. It was a warm October day in Secaucus, the trees lining the parking lot in orange as he pulled into a spot in front of the convention center. The front bumper scraped the wheelstop loudly, and Dakota grinned. He clambered out of the old car and turned to look as Cavendish unfolded himself out the other door. 

“I don’t see why you feel the need to drive like such a maniac,” Cavendish snapped, following him through the convention center doors. 

“It’s part of my charm,” Dakota said, pulling out his phone to find their digital tickets. As he showed them to the people at the ticket booth, they ushered them through, onto the show floor. Cavendish had immediately started strategizing the most efficient route through the rows of tanks; Dakota smiled up at him and sidled closer, slipping a hand into his partner’s back pocket. Usually any kind of PDA got him an indignant squawk, but Cavendish simply continued his pontification, flushed. 


End file.
